"That is disgusting!" whispered Otto: "they all look like crazy
people."

Wilhelm laughed at it. The wild merriment was lost in a joyous
burst of laughter. The girl with the grown-together eyebrows let
fall her arms; but still there lay in her glance that wild
expression, which the loose hair and uncovered shoulders made still
more striking. Either one of the others had had the misfortune to
scratch her lip, or else she herself had bitten it in bacchanalian
wildness until it bled: she accidentally glanced toward the open
door where stood the friends. Otto's countenance became clouded, as
was ever the case when anything unpleasant affected him. She seemed
to guess his thoughts, and laughed aloud. Otto stepped aside; it
was as though he in anticipation felt the shadow which this form
would one day cast across his life.

When he and Wilhelm immediately afterward returned to Sophie and
Louise, he related the unpleasant impression which the girl had
made upon him.

"O, that is my Meg Merrilies!" exclaimed Sophie. "Yes, spite of her
youth, do you not find that she has something of Sir Walter Scott's
witch about her? When she grows older, she will be excellent. She
has the appearance of being thirty, whereas she is said not to be
more than twenty years old: she is a true giantess."

"The poor thing!" said Louise; "every one judges from the exterior.
All who are around her hate her, I believe, because her eyebrows
are grown together, and that is said to be a sign that she is a